NOTE: This list focuses
largely on the Cardinals’ admitted, proven, and alleged misdeeds within the
past six years, AFTER the US bishops pledged to respond more quickly, openly
and compassionately to clergy child molestation.

(For decades, however,
these highly-educated men knew that child sex crimes were illegal, wrong and
hurtful.)

Cardinal Sean O'Malley of
Boston

• Last month church
officials disclosed that, for the second year in a row, O’Malley is in
violation of the US bishops' child sex abuse prevention policy.

Much in the policy is
meaningless public relations, SNAP is convinced. But O’Malley’s breaking one of
the proven, practical requirements that help prevent abuse: training kids how
to avoid or stop being victimized.

Roughly one in five Boston
Catholic children is not receiving this training. Every child is supposed to
receive it.

Worse, O’Malley tries to
dodge responsibility for this clear, egregious refusal by blaming pastors and
parishioners.

But O’Malley’s had six years
to persuade colleagues to weaken the national abuse policy, devise alternative
programs, or get on board (and get his employees on board). He’s done none of
these three steps.

Nor has he disciplined a
single individual for flaunting this national requirement.

• In a 2006 case with
disturbing parallels to many of the hundreds of Boston pedophile priest cases,
O’Malley moved very slowly and gingerly against a prominent Catholic hospital
official who faces multiple allegations of sexually harassing employees.

A high ranking human
resources official at the hospital “accused O'Malley of improperly interceding
in the investigation to help (the accused), giving him advance notice of the
probe, providing him with an adviser, and telling of the reprimand before
consulting with the board,” according to the Boston Globe.

The cardinal's actions
''have made a mockery of the investigation. It is nothing short of
shameful," she wrote.

“Perhaps most
troubling" was what she called the ''near absence" of concern for the
women complainants that she said was shown by the church hierarchy

• Less than two months
ago, the New York Post reported “The former principal of a prestigious Catholic
high school who resigned amid allegations of inappropriate images on his work
computer was allowed to stay on the job for nearly five months after a priest
wrote the New York Archdiocese accusing him of serious misconduct.”

In 2003, Egan became
the first US prelate to refuse to say mass for the devoutly Catholic,
hand-picked, distinguished lay panel chosen by bishops to look at the church’s
child sex abuse crisis. According to the New York Times, Egan also “interfered
with” and prevented the US bishops’ ‘watchdog’ on clergy sex cases from
speaking in his archdiocese.

Cardinal Francis George
of Chicago

•In August 2005, Fr. Daniel
McCormack was questioned by the police because of abuse allegations. Two months
later, the Chicago lay review board recommended that George suspend McCormack.
George refused, kept silent and let his chancellor promote McCormack. Three
months later, police arrested McCormack again. During those last few months of
his active parish ministry in Chicago’s inner city, McCormack molested at least
three boys, the district attorney said. (One of the children, prosecutors say,
had been assaulted “on an almost daily” basis.)

• While the McCormack
case has received some attention, George has displayed shocking callousness,
recklessness and secrecy in other, post-2002 cases. Perhaps most notably,
within months of the adoption of the so-called ‘reforms’ in Dallas, George
knowingly and secretly let a convicted predator priest (Fr. Kenneth Martin)
work in the archdiocese and live, part-time, with George in George’s mansion.

• In 2005 or 2006, LA
church and school officials were questioned by police about current child sex
abuse allegations against John Malburg. Malburg was a Catholic high school
principal from a politically prominent family. The archdiocese didn't suspend
him. They told no one about the investigation. Six months later, Malburg was
arrested and criminally charged. Parents asked church officials "Why
didn't you tell us? Why didn't you suspend him?" Cardinal Mahony's PR man
told the LA Times "Law enforcement told us to keep quiet." The next
day, in the LA Times, prosecutors said they never made any such request.

In August 2007, long-secret
church records about Aguilar were publicly disclosed. According to the New York
Times, the documents showed that then-Msgr. Thomas Curry “tipped off” the
accused pedophile priest who then fled to Mexico to avoid criminal
prosecution.(An LA district attorney said Curry “facilitated” Aguilar’s
flight.) Aguilar went on to molest kids in Mexico later.

Curry is now one of Mahony’s
auxiliary bishops. Despite public pleas to discipline Curry, or at least speak
out about Curry’s irresponsible secrecy, Mahony said and did nothing.

• For years, Mahony
stayed secretly let an admitted child molesting cleric live in his archdiocese
(in a picturesque religious complex overlooking the ocean), despite the
cleric’s being wanted on criminal charges in Canada. In 2005, when SNAP and
others demanded that Mahony and his colleagues turn Franciscan friar Gerald
Chumik to law enforcement, he let Chumik move from Santa Barbara Mission Church in Santa Barbara to Missouri.

For 14 years, Chumik has
been a fugitive from his native Canada.

SNAP leaders believe this
needlessly put children at risk and is a clear violation of the much-touted
Dallas Charter which all American bishops adopted in June of 2002.

• Elected district attorneys
rarely feud in public with powerful religious figures. But in October 2005,
(more than three years after Mahony pledged “openness” about child sex abuse
and cover ups), Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said “Three
years ago, I urged Cardinal Mahony to provide the fullest possible disclosure
of evidence of sexual abuse by clergy. Despite two court rulings ordering full
disclosure, Cardinal Mahony continues to claim ‘confidentiality privileges’
that no court has recognized.”

• In November 2007, a
victim reported having been sexually abused by Fr. Stephen Horn between 1989
and 1993. DiNardo found him credible and suspended Horn. The Cardinal, however,
kept the allegation and his determination secret from parishioners, police and
the public for two months, despite US bishops’ repeated pledges to act quickly
and openly with credibly sex abuse allegations. Finally, in mid-January,
DiNardo disclosed his action. (The delay gave Horn, a credibly accused
molester, ample opportunity to fabricate alibis, destroy evidence, intimidate
victims, threaten witnesses, or even flee the country, as some pedophile
priests have done.)

Part of DiNardo’s secrecy
and delay occurred in the weeks between when the Pope announced that DiNardo
would be named a Cardinal (October 2007) and when DiNardo was promoted amid
much pageantry (November 24). Some Houston Catholics have speculated that
DiNardo didn’t want the news of Horn’s crimes to ‘rain on (DiNardo’s) parade’

Weeks ago, SNAP wrote
DiNardo, urging him to explain and apologize for his secrecy. SNAP has urged the
cardinal to visit parishes where Horn worked and emphatically beg victims and
witnesses to come forward, get help and call the police. He has not responded
to either the letter or the request.

• When he was a bishop
in Sioux City Iowa, DiNardo similarly mishandled the Fr. George McFadden case
in Iowa, only disclosing the allegations against this predator priest long
afterwards.)

Beginning in the 1990s (and
likely longer), Sioux City church officials knew of repeated charges of child
molestation against McFadden, an admitted abuser, dating back into the 1960s.
(DiNardo was Sioux City bishop starting in 1997.) For at least five years (and
even later), DiNardo had the chance to disclose McFadden's hurtful actions to
police, prosecutors, parishioners, and the public, and to keep McFadden from
other vulnerable children. He stayed silent.

According to the Des Moines
Register, "The confessed child molester continued to hear confession and
say Mass daily over the past decade at the Cathedral of the Epiphany, Sioux
City's largest Catholic church.)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network
of those Abused by Priests, is the nation’s oldest and largest support group
for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 17 years and have more than
8,000 members across the country. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we
have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations,
including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is
SNAPnetwork.org)